Growth, by Holy Spirit or Leaven?

On Saturdays I participate in a systematic Bible Study with some friends. We just started a reading of the Acts of the Apostles. Chapter 2 describes the birth of the Christian congregation and the phenomenal growth it experiences. It started with just 120 disciples of Jesus who had the power of the Holy Spirit given to them. The power of the Spirit manifested itself in the gift of tongues which caused quite a scene and many unbelieving Jews to gather to investigate. Peter stands up and filled with Holy Spirit speaks to them about Jesus and asserts that he is both Lord and Christ and that in order to be saved you must call on his name. The result is on that very first day, 3,000 are immediately baptized and become a part of the Christian congregation. The account concludes that, "the Lord was adding to their number every day". (Acts 2)

It would be reasonable to conclude that the Lord was behind such sudden, fantastic growth and gave evidence that this fledgling body had his blessing.

Let's flash-foward about three-hundred years to another time when the Christian congregation was experiencing tremendous growth. The Edict of Milam was just issued which legalized the Christian worship in the Roman Empire and the Emperor Constantine himself converted to Christianity and bestowed state favor toward Christianity. Writer David W. Bercot comments,

"Christianity had grown rapidly in the first three centuries, but after the coversion of Constantine the church mushroomed. At the the time of the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313), probably about a tenth of the Roman Empire had converted to Chrstianity. But that had taken nearly three hundred years. In less than a hundred years after the Edict of Milan, nearly all of the other 90 percent had been "converted." The church believed that this rapid growth was a sure sign of God's approval. Having accepted this premise, the church quickly adopted virtually any practice that resulted in growth, including the use of images in worship - a practice utterly loathsome to the early Christians." - Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, p. 129

From these two examples of rapid growth we can see that not all comes from God's blessing and that corruption can bring about fantastic numeric growth just as Holy Spirit can.

This ties into another discussion that I have been having in our group about "leaven".

In Scripture "leaven" is a common figure of speech and is routinely used to signify corruption. Jesus thus warns his follows against the "leaven" of the Pharisees and of Herod. (Mark 8:15) The "leaven" of the Pharisees can be seen as their teachings that corrupted the true meaning of the Law. The "leaven" of Herod may be seen as a wordly political element that corrupted the Jewish way of life with foreign practice. In a similar way, the apostle Paul used "leaven" to signify "sin" that had crept into the Corinthian congregation and threatened to contaminate the entire congregation. (1 Cor 5:6-8) Equally he warns that Jewish legalism can act as leaven, corrupting and transforming the "whole batch". (Gal 5:9)

Since these scriptual references to "leaven" have a negative connotation it may be surprising to consider how in one parable Jesus compares the work of leaven to the Kingdom of God. At Matthew 13:33 he says, "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.". Generally,people conclude that this is a good thing that Jesus speaks of. They may understand this parable to mean that just as a tiny bit of leaven can work its way through a whole batch of dough, so too the Kingdom of God can start small, perhaps with one individual, and slowly grow to influence a whole community, and even transform the world. However, since in every other account leaven is used as something that is impure, sinful, and corrupting we have to question whether or not this is really a good thing that Jesus is speaking of at Matthew 13:33.

Some may feel that there cannot be anything unclean and corrupting within the Kingdom of God. But, if we look at the thrust of the other "Kingdom" parables Jesus provides in the 13th of Matthew we can see how in some of them there is a bad element present along with the good. For instance he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a field of wheat that an enemy sneaks into and oversows with weeds. (Matthew 13:24-30) He speaks of the Kingdom as being a net filled with all types of fish, both bad and good. (Matthew 13:47,48)

[It can also be considered in his parable the women hides the leaven. There is element of stealth involved in the same way in the parable of the sower the enemy sneaks in while the field owner is sleeping and hides his weeds among the wheat.]

So if this leaven in the parable is a bad thing how are we to understand Jesus' parable? A good help is to consider an account provided by Mark 8:14-21. It reads:

"Now they had forgotten to take bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. And Jesus ordered them, "Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!" So they began to discuss with one another about having no bread. When he learned of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you arguing about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Have your hearts been hardened? Though you have eyes, don’t you see? And though you have ears, can’t you hear? Don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?" They replied, "Twelve." "When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?" They replied, "Seven." Then he said to them, "Do you still not understand?"

At first glance the transition here seems somewhat disconnected and jarring as Jesus quickly goes from speaking of leaven to talking about his miraculous multiplication of the loafs. However, what is the common connection between the two? For me it has to do with growth. If you've ever made bread you know that when yeast is added to dough it can greatly increase in size - a handful can expand to fill an entire bowl. Similarly Jesus was able to take just a few loaves of bread and expand them to satisfy the needs of thousands. Outwardly both appear to be an expansion; however, the similarities between the two there end.

When making yeast bread you have to "punch" down the risen dough before forming it into a loaf to bake. When you do so the mound of dough quickly deflates just like a baloon because it is really just filled with air. The yeast adds no grain to the bread, only air. The growth is merely superficial. However, when Jesus multiplied the loaves by the power of the Holy Spirit he created something of substance, something solid.

When it comes to the Christian congregation growth can come in these two ways. When the Holy Spirit produces growth it is in the same manner of Jesus multiplying the loaves. Each loaf is essentially a duplication of Christ (his body being represented by the bread). It is substancial, solid food. However, when outside corrupting elements produce growth it is not a replication of Christ. It simply produces an impressive looking body of believers that has very little of Jesus' substance but it is filled mostly with other elements, like air.

Many religious organizations today cite their growth as evidence of God's blessing and the working of His Spirit. How can we discern if it is true growth and multiplication or false expansion produced by corrupting leaven? One way is to examine the body of believers that makes up that religious association. Do they give evidence of being solid Christians manifesting the mind and qualities of Jesus Christ? Or do they only superficially wear the name Christian and very little of Jesus is present admist a bunch of hot air?